


Resolution

by Kharon



Series: Red [8]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Future Fic, Gen, Next Generation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-25 06:58:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12525628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kharon/pseuds/Kharon
Summary: For a ninja Sasori is old. For a ninja without an official affiliation to any village – he hasn't been listed as a Suna shinobi for almost eleven years – he is ancient. As a ninja that's been practicing his profession for 30 years he is screwing with almost all statistics on active duty shinobi, as they predicted him dead roughly a decade ago.





	Resolution

For a ninja Sasori is old. For a ninja without an official affiliation to any village – he hasn't been listed as a Suna shinobi for almost eleven years – he is ancient. As a ninja that's been practicing his profession for thirty years he is screwing with almost all statistics on active duty shinobi, as they predicted him dead roughly a decade ago.

Most of the time he forgets about all of that. It doesn't have any impact on his life besides the fact that all his pictures in bingo books look rather out-dated by now.

Only in moments like this, when he is outrunning two shinobi in their twenties to the point where he seriously considers taking a break least they drop dead from lack of oxygen, does he remember that, yes, he is a rather exceptional case of a ninja in this day and age.

On the route they have chosen the journey from Konohagakure to the western outskirts of the great desert should take them ten days, and he hoped to cut time. This however, just won't do.

Sighing, Akashi motions for the two Konoha-nin to drop from the foliage of the trees into the dense undergrowth of the forest.

They find a small clearing in less than two minutes and he watches as his companions take off their packs and slump down at the bottom of a big tree beside each other.

Initially he wanted to make the trip back to Sunagakure on his own. It wouldn't necessarily have been faster, but it would have given him the time to clear his mind, to sharpen his focus, to fully become _Sasori_ again after having spent so much time playing the Uchiha family friend in Konoha.

Yes, the Uchiha and his now-Hokage cousin promised him aid, but Akashi honestly hadn't expected to get it immediately.

Even though he has fought a war in wind country in everything but name for a few years now, he would have grudgingly sat there and waited for a few weeks longer if necessary – maybe even gladly, if he'd known before that said immediate help wouldn't come from the Uchiha but in the form of Nara Shikara and the nephew of the Hyuuga clan head.

"Your pace is terrible, Scorpion," the girl grumbles in-between greedy gulps from her canteen.

"And your stamina is lacking, cousin," he retorts and hides his satisfaction at the grimace she makes when he mentions their kinship - she has been carefully subdued about her dislike of Suna shinobi since they departed. One or the other parent must have imparted some sense into their offspring, though Sasori still hasn't figured out why she of all people is accompanying him in the first place.

"He is drawing chakra from the seal on his chest."

His eyes dart over to the Hyuuga.

Hayashi is a quiet young man. Polite, a sensible ninja if he has to make a guess, obviously very talented... less arrogant than Akashi had thought him to be.

"No," he shakes his head, "I'm _storing_ it."

Shikara's head snaps up from her backpack, her dark eyes fixed on the spot beneath the ninja vest where the head of the scorpion lies on his chest. She wants to say something, but his dark look makes her think better off it.

"You have ten minutes, I'll be scouting," he tells them and takes off into the trees.

Truthfully he is useless in this forest. The Byakugan can see miles ahead and he wouldn't be surprised if his cousin's brat knows exactly where in this godforsaken ocean of trees they are at any given time, but he, blood of the sand that he is, would be completely lost without them.

Without the two younger ninja Sasori would have gone west when leaving Konohagakure until he reached the Land of Rivers, travelling along their border to fire country through the mangroves, the swamps and crossing over into wind country in the cover of the stone desert.

He is half-Konoha, but still he wouldn't have dared travelling though the heartland of the Land of Fire on his own.

"Time's up, get going," he informs them when he drops back into the clearing.

His mood is dark and his thoughts are darker – Akashi knows it, knows but is unable to do much about it.

There are too many unwanted thoughts in head.

He hates this godforsaken forest. He wants to see the sky, to have solid ground beneath his feet instead of swaying branches. This is his mother's land however and he wants to know it, thinks about how lonely she must have been in Suna at times, how it must have saddened her that her children had never bothered about learning of fire country.

There is beauty to be seen in the lush, ancient trees and green grass, and he got a blink of it in Konohagakure, wandering the Uchiha compound and the Nara forest, but here, alone in the forest with two strangers, he sees none of it. There is no familiarity here, no soft voices soothing his loneliness, no welcoming smile-

A tree splinters when he pushes off too hard, a part of the giant trunk splitting open from the force of his jump. Hyuuga Hayashi makes a surprised sound behind him.

Akashi doesn't look back however. He doesn't look much at them at all through their journey. Instead the focuses forward, pushes the two younger ninja into a pace he knows they don't have the stamina for, not caring much for their tired faces and muffled sounds of pain when they stop to rest for the night.

Soon there will be war. Either because he fails to kill his sister, or because he doesn't. He can't afford the luxury of idling around.

So Sasori forces them onwards, north-west towards the border until they finally break through the trees.

Summer has begun already, and the heat of river country is both oppressive and gratifying at the same time. The swamps make the air almost unbearably humid, but since the trees are smaller and the forests normal sized he can feel the western winds on his skin most of the time, the harbingers of another land, a land made of dust and drought. _His home_.

Wind country is close, and he allows himself to think of what happens elsewhere in the world.

In Konoha his cousin is the new Hokage, in Kumo civil war has broken out.

Forces of the _daimyou_ of lightning country reportedly clash with civilians as often as with their own ninja. It's a brutal free-for-all where everyone reaches for power while it's out for grabs.

Meanwhile Shikano, the Uchiha and whoever else was involved in their coup want to replace the dead _daimyou_ of fire country with a ruling council, somehow forgetting that elections usually resolve in only slightly less bloodshed and misery than civil war. They wouldn't hear his well-meant objection, instead telling him of the liberty of the people and freedom of choice. Sasori had snorted at their naivety and left them to their fantasies.

They take one last break at the beginning of the rocky desert that marks the border between the lands of wind and river, and then, just when the sun rises, he is finally back.

Standing on one of the highest peaks of the rock formation, not far from where he met Uchiha Akane two months ago, he looks at the beauty of wind country, his home, all sharp angles, hard soil, dry heat, and sand to the horizon, and prepares to spill blood on the desert.

 _Akasuna no Sasori_ they called his namesake. Sasori of the Red Sand.

Akashi never thought this would be his choice make, and the little boy inside him who wants nothing more than to be with his family again cries out in anguish at what will come, but Sasori ignores him and leads the two Konoha-nin west towards the camp of the revolutioners.

**Author's Note:**

> As promised, there's more Akashi here, though to be honest I didn't intend for the journey back to wind country to take up an entire chapter. I wanted to end the series this year, but as of now I'll write 2 more chapters to end the plot and then 1 more that will act as an epilogue of sorts.
> 
> Note that Shikara calls Akashi "scorpion" which is the literal tranlation of _sasori_. Everyone else uses Sasori as a name, but with her the English translation acts as a natural reinforcement of how she sees Akashi: as a killer, an animal almost, more of a thing and less human. The title is the same, but the focus has shifted.


End file.
